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Texas, August, Hell & Reprieve

Texas in August, it’s a bleak, sizzling time of year. There’s really nothing good about it. After 90 days of blistering sun even local lakes and swimming pools are reaching for near body temperature. Short of a few springs and river bottoms stirred up by turnover or dams, there’s no relief outside of air-conditioned shelters or a nice walk in freezer. And forget anything you’ve heard about a “dry heat.” Once the temp gets uncomfortably above a 100 degrees, it doesn’t matter that much how dry it is, it quickly gets hot enough to kill a person in direct sunlight in as little as an hour or two if they aren’t used to it.

But an unusual thing happen here yesterday: a cold front blew in, with obligatory thunderstorms, and cooled off the surface right before the afternoon highs kicked in. Then it stayed cloudy and windy the rest of the evening, preventing insolation from re-rebaking the landscape. And this morning it was still cloudy and somewhat cool. The bolder, or perhaps more hopeful, forecasts even give us a chance that it might edge into the upper 60s overnight in some parts of the extended Central Texas hill country. It’s weird and it won’t last, real relief is still many weeks away, but it is welcome!

I might even have enough energy to write a decent blog past later today because of it.

Yes, this weekend has been quite a relief from the heat. We got one inch of rain yesterday, then another 1.3 inches over night in Round Rock. Northern Williamson County received 5.5 inches of rain in 24 hours. Sitting on the back porch smoking a cigar this afternoon was very pleasant.

What a difference a year makes. I attribute it to Gov. Goodhair not asking people to pray for rain this year.